Work
by audreydelrey
Summary: Maybe he was a little slow, and she was too emotionally stunted to notice but in the end they figure it out. One quidditch game at a time.


James Potter has a way of fucking shit up for himself that somehow manages to drag Artemis into situations she's completely unprepared for.

Crashing out of the playoffs for the third year in a row pisses Artemis off, and she just wants to go home and rest, maybe obsess over some new plays for next year.

While her preferred method of dealing with the loss is to do what James likes to call her, sitting in the dark and staring at a blank TV screen routine, James has a completely different way of dealing with things. They're both angry; Artemis is pissed off that she had gotten injured, that she played through a severe concussion and made things worse for herself and for the team. Basically single handily blaming the loss on herself.

James is just angry that he couldn't fill in for Artemis the way that everyone seemed to expect him to and at Artemis for not being truthful about her concussion all along.

She has to remember all too well the look on James face as he'd said "I cant go through this again, don't ever do this again or we're done."

No amount of guilt that Artemis is still holding on to is enough to forgive James for the way he behaves after they part in the locker room though.

He doesn't call and ask for help but instead, lets Artemis find out from Julius Wood and the goddamn paper how he's been spending his time since the playoffs.

Artemis had her suspicions about the radio silence and the fact that James never once forgotten her birthday in seven years, and this year there's been nothing, not even a text from the stupid muggle phone he bought her or an owl. James is her best mate - and James always proclaimed himself as such - and she's always trusted James to come to her, trusted that James knew he could come to her when he needed someone.

The owl she gets from Wood is just an article from some sports/gossip magazine, and Artemis is expecting a few laughs out of whatever rumors they've decided are trustworthy, followed by a poorly worded text that will no doubt spill over to the rest of the team.

What she gets instead are pictures and updates from James' Switzerland vacation—including pictures of him lying face down in bars and wearing a douchey t-shirt that leaves no doubt as to who he is. Artemis forces herself to read it all the way through, ignoring the way her fingers tighten around said article.

Anger blossoms in her chest and threatens to spill over, she grabs her phone, punching through to James number.

He picks up after three rings and she doesn't give him a chance to speak before she's biting out, "Where the fuck are you?"

There's a long, drawn-out silence before James finally answers. When he does, he sounds groggy and distracted. "Smalls?"

She's suffered through enough of James's hangovers to know that's what this is. She growls in the back of her throat, trying to find words.

It's rare that they manage to have a conversation that doesn't end with them shouting at each other but that won't solve anything.

She hates trying to be responsible and calm when she just wants is to kill James.

He finally lets out a breath and Artemis can hear the snick of a door in the background. "You know those magazines, smalls."

"James Sirius Potter," Artemis warns. "Don't you DARE fuck with me right now."

"What do you want me to say?" James sounds angry, and Artemis wants to reach through the phone and throttle him. He has no right to be angry with her. "Smalls—"

"No." Artemis pinches the bridge of her nose. "Get your ass to London, James. You're twenty-seven years old; you're not a rookie anymore. You can't keep pulling this shit and expecting it to be okay."

James snorts. "You sound like my mom."

"Ginny's a smart fucking lady." Artemis bites out and glares out the window at the Karasjok wizarding skyline. "I'm serious. Get home."

"Are you—"

"You're so much better than this Jamie," Artemis interrupts. Sometimes it feels like she signed on to look after James when their contracts were extended, and she's damned if she wants that responsibility. "I'm just so disappointed in you."

James is silent on the end of the phone, but she hangs up before he can say anything else.

She texts a quick apology to Ginny, because she knows what she always goes through whenever James pulls shit like this, an ETA to her own mother to let her know what time she'll be arriving at Malfoy Manor, and goes to take a shower.

When she gets back, the only text she looks at before packing her bags is the one from James.

 _Heading home tomorrow..._

Artemis is still angry enough that it's easy to tamp down on the brief flare of satisfaction and text back, _congratulations, dickhead_ , before ignoring any and all texts Potter sends after that.

* * *

"Artemis. Welcome home, darling." Her mother hugs her a little longer than she's accustomed to when she arrives at her parents' house. She touches her cheek when she's done, making her feel like she's sixteen again, searching her face and no doubt reading everything. "He's still young."

She doesn't want to talk about it, the anger still pounding throughout her body. "He's three years older than me," she snaps.

Her mother isn't daunted by her tone, just clucks her tongue and leads the way into the house. "You brood-" She holds up a finger to forestall her response. "You brood about your losses. Potter acts out. You've always been more mature, ever since you became captain... He isn't like you dear."

Artemis knows this, she's always known it. It's different this time - the rumors are merging with a lot of truth and it makes her uncomfortable. The guy in the article isn't anyone that she wants to be associated with. When she says as much, her mother doesn't look completely surprised.

"Maybe you should tell him that's how you feel. He deserves as much."

There doesn't seem to be any point in that. James doesn't deserve anything from Artemis right now, least of all interaction. Her mother looks disappointed in her, Merlin knows why; she's always had a soft spot for Jamie because he's Artemis's —still, even if she wishes it weren't so right now— best mate.

James just needs to stop doing this to her, is the thing.

She climbs into bed that night and finds a text from Ginny, which is equally as confusing _._

 _Don't apologize. He's hurt you as much as he has us. Call if you need anything darling. You know we are always here for you_ , _sending all our love._

Artemis texts something nonsensical in return, ignores Potters twelve attempts at an apology, and turns off her dumb muggle phone.

She's not hurt, she's fucking furious.

She's not sure she cares enough right now to be hurt.

* * *

James stays with his parents when he first arrives in London, and endures a week of lectures from every family member he knows including a conversation with his Grandpa Arthur that left both of them in tears, before he takes a day for himself and hides out in his own house.

He spends an hour trying to get Artemis to answer his texts, sends a coupe owls since the weirdo prefers letters, even though it's been pretty futile up till now. He's not above being a pain in the ass about it, enough so that she'll caves and answer him, even if it's just a pissy retort.

When it's clear that he's not going to get anything, James has to settle for asking Astoria if Artemis's okay.

She replies within a day via owl, _she is here. you've got work ahead of you_ , and that doesn't sound good at all, but James at least he knows Artemis hasn't drowned herself in Lake Malfoy out of despair and disappointment in him.

He deliberately doesn't touch the alcohol in his fridge, because his mom's lecture was way too distressing to remember in its entirety, but this part he does.

He needs to stop before he permanently screws up his life and his game.

It's the thought of losing quidditch that gets to him, the look on her face as she was screaming at him, the heavy silence his siblings and cousins bestowed on him for the entire week.

Lily caves first, asking him if he's going to change and stop being the asshole he's always warned her about. He knows he's done little to make her proud of him lately; there's nothing more embarrassing than his sister having to see pictures of him in some dumb magazine falling out of bars.

He can't pretend he's not bitter about their vilification of him, but he also can't remember much about his time in Switzerland, and most of all, he's aware that he fucked up. Fixing this epic shit storm is going to take a hell of a lot of work but James is willing to do it, for himself.

After Lily, Dominique reaches out. She was the last one he thought would contact him as she's engaged to Arts older brother Scorpius. She doesn't give anything away about her, which is down right cruel in his perspective, but she does give some insight as to how much Scorpius and Draco want to kick his arse for disappointing her.

It doesn't take long for James to get tired of moping around in a house that is way too big for him.

He's still not entirely sure what he was thinking when he bought it, only that Artemis had a house and a fucking lake in Sweden, not to mention about a dozen other properties scattered around, and James wanted the same. He's really not going to analyze it too much; the point is that it's too big and he doesn't want to have to worry about whether or not anyone is actually going to talk to him right now. It's not entirely fair.

Julius texted him just after he started hiding out and told him that it would be fine, _just lay low, man_. _She'll come around, she always does for you_.

James would worry more about everyone fixating on Artemis's reaction to his little co-ed booze-up, but he's pretty sure shoving your face into couch cushions because your best mate refuses to speak to you isn't the behavior of a sane and rational person, so he lets it go.

James does lay low. He texts a few of his old school buddies—the ones that don't make his mom raise her eyebrow, the ones that make even Smalls laugh—and asks if they want to come by. They're either totally sympathetic to his plight or they just want to mock him because most of them say yes, something that hasn't happened a lot since James made the majors and grew out of contact with most of them.

Besides that, focusing on quidditch is the only thing he's got to care about right now. He's still good at quidditch, still has quidditch even if nobody else is talking to him, so he can play and remember what it feels like own it.

He got lucky but he knows what makes him comfortable and it's hugging the right side of the field with Artemis to back him up down center. He deliberately doesn't think of any of these things, though, as he plays keep away with some of the guys who come over.

It's weird to miss a game that you were playing right up until a few weeks ago, but it's still true. Things were kind of shit for the team through January—for reasons that James is still mad at smalls for even if he's never going to say so again—right up to the playoffs and James knows they're going to be better next year, but it still hurts.

It's still good to play with his buddies even when it's just a grassy plain and not a real field.

Still good to have the broom in his hands and be playing again. He spends a couple of days alternately playing quidditch and coaxing his siblings into actually interacting with him enough to watch movies, even if they just end up crying and awkwardly hugging until, by the third day, Lily falls asleep on his shoulder and Albus looks pretty close to caving and sitting on the same couch as him. Still, every night when he crawls into bed, he stares at his phone and thinks about the gazillion ways texting Artemis is a terrible idea and how he's only going to be greeted with stony silence.

He does it anyway.


End file.
